


Worlds

by Kindness



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M, Gen, hermione does too, i love chrestomanci
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-01-31
Updated: 2011-01-31
Packaged: 2019-07-08 09:11:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 501
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15927314
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kindness/pseuds/Kindness
Summary: She tries to explainThe Chronicles of Chrestomancito them, one night in the common room, their third year.





	Worlds

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted [here](https://oxoniensis.livejournal.com/472424.html?thread=29492328#t29492328). Finally getting around to transferring my handful of LJ-only fics to AO3, in the Year of Our Lord 2018.
> 
> Prompts: _fantasy, years, wartime, remember_

Hermione hasn't read a Muggle fantasy book since she was eleven. There doesn't seem to be much of a practical purpose to it, once she has a real-life secondary world and suddenly so much new nonfiction to absorb. But there is one series from her childhood, gathering dust on her shelves at home now, that really fascinated her as a child, and which sticks with her through the Hogwarts years; she thinks of it often as the world – as both worlds – change so fast it feels like she and the boys are barely keeping abreast of it.

She tries to explain _The Chronicles of Chrestomanci_ to them, one night in the common room, their third year. She waxes unusually poetic about how the different worlds work in the book; the idea that a great historical moment might fissure time and space. She's been thinking about that aspect of _Chrestomanci_ a lot lately, as she gets the hang of the Time-Turner. But of course she can't tell the boys about that.

Ron squints in confusion as she tries to describe how magic works for Christopher and Cat. And he can't seem to get his head around the different-worlds idea. ("Bollocks!") She bites her lip and tries not to laugh; it never ceases to amaze (and amuse) her how he's grown up in a world of moving photographs and flying broomsticks, and all the things she never thought really existed, and things like _this_ (and football) are what he finds ridiculous.

Harry, who she'd thought might've heard of them (but he hasn't), just shrugs and says it sounds interesting, and would Hermione mind making sure his Charms essay makes sense? ("Ooh, mine, too!" says Ron.)

She never brings it up again.

But Harry does.

It's in the Forest of Dean, in their tent, very late one night. Ron is gone and Hermione is flipping through _The Tales of Beedle the Bard_ , and Harry says, out of the blue, "Do you remember those books you talked about?"

And she gives him a most incredulous look, because how many books has she talked about in the time they've known one another? and they both laugh. "I mean," he clarifies, "the Muggle books. The ones where the world splits apart."

"Chrestomanci," she says, and feels something tighten in her chest. She doesn't have to be half as bright as she is to understand why Harry's remembering it now. She wonders if she should repeat the name, just to see if maybe he really does come when he's called.

That's the first night they huddle against each other, because no amount of magicking the fire can seem to keep them warm, and they don't fall asleep until dawn.

~

In another world, there's a Harry who isn't so godforsaken heroic, and a Hermione who's not too responsible to give up, and a Ron who never finds his way back.

In another world, Harry kisses Hermione under the ice-white sky, and that's the first day they start to forget.


End file.
